The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-03-27

lAhN bh1 6iANeSA VI WI 10
in their hands. They are nearly as
interesting as their work Contact
with them warns and kindles the
mind, and you will not be content
after reading one of these authors,
without knowing the character and
the personality of the man who con-
ceived the works, and until you have
spent an hour or two-and it will go
long way with Burke still fresh 10
your mind-over other compositions
in political literature, over Bacon's
civil pieces, or Machiavelli's Prince,
and others in the same order OF
thought.
A DEFINITION OF LITERATURE.
Defnitions-I hope it is not too
rash to say so-always appear to me
in these things to be in the nature of
a vanity, and feel here that the at
tempt to be compact in the definition
of literature ends in something that
is rather meager, partial, starved and
unsatisfactory. | turn to the answer
given by great French writer TO
question Lot quite the same-viz,
What is a classic" Literature
consists of a whole body Of classics
in the true sense Of the word, and
classic, as | should like to see him
defined, is an author who has en-
riched the human mind, who ha
really added to its treasures, who has
got it to take a step further, who has
discovered some unequivocal moral
truth, or has penetrated to some
eternal passion in that heart of man
where it seemed as though all was
known and explored, who has pro-
duced his thought or his observation
or his invention under some form, no
matter what, so it be great, large,
acute and reasonable, sane and beau
tiful in itself, who has spoken to all
in a style of his OVID, yet a style
which finds itself the style of every
body, in style which is at once new
and antique, and is the contemporary
of all the ages" At a single read
ing you may not take all that in, but
if you should have any opportunity
of recurring to it you will find this
rs satisfactory, full and instructive
account of what is a classic,
and will find in it a full and
satisfactory account of what those
who have thought most on literature
hope to get from it and most would
desire to confer upon others by it.
Literature consists Of all the books
and they are not so many-where
moral truth and human passion are
touched with a certain largeness,
sanity and attraction of form; and
my notion of the literary student is
one who through books explores the
strange voyages of mans moral
reason, the impulses of the human
heart, the chances and changes that
have overtaken human ideas of vir-
tue and happiness, of conduct and
manners and the shifting fortunes OF
great conceptions of truth and virtue.
Poets, dramatists, humorists, satir-
lists, masters of fiction, the great
preachers, the character writer's, the
maxim writers, the great political
orators, they are all literature in so
far as they teach US to know man
and to know human nature. This is
what makes literature, rightly siited
and selected and rightly studied, not
the mere elegant trifling that it is
so often and enormously supposed
but a proper instrument for a sys-
tematic training OF the Imagination
and sympathies and of genial aud
varied moral sensibility.
From this point Of view let me re-
min you that books are not the
products of accident and caprice
There is an order there are causes
and relations. There are relations
Between the great compositions and
the societies from which they have
emerged; and | would put it in this
way to you, that justas the naturalist
strives to understand and to explain
the distribution ofplants aud animals
over the surface of the globe, to cOu-
meet their presence or their absence
with great geological, climatic and
oceanic changes, 50 the student OF
literature, it he be wise, will get a
survey Of ideas, of tastes, OF senti-
ments, Of imagination, of humor, of
invention, as they affect and as they
are affected by the ever changed ex-
periences Of human nature aud the
manifold variations that time and
circumstances are necessarily work
ing in human society.
RIGHT EXPRESSION OF CHARACTER.
should like to say one word upon
the practice of composition. | have
suffered, by the chance of life, very
much from the practice of compost
ton. 1t has been my lot, suppose,
to read more unpublished works than
any one else in this ROOM ard, |
hope, in this city. There is an idea,
and | venture to think a very mis-
taken idea, that you cannot have a
taste for literature unless you are
yourself an author. | venture to
entirely demur to that proposition,
and | venture with all respect to
those who are teachers of literature
to demur to the excellence and utili-
ty Of the practice of over much es-
say writing and composition. | have
very little faith in rules of style, but
| have an unbounded faith in the
virtue Of cultivating direct and pre-.
else expression. 1t is not everybody
who can command the mighty rhythm
of the greatest masters of human
speech; but every one can make
reasonably sure that he knows what
he means and whether he has found
the right word. 1t has been said 8
million times that the foundation Of
right expression in speech or writing
is sincerity. 1t is as true now as il
has ever been, and it is not merely
the authors of books who
should study right expression
1t is part OF character. AS some,
body has said, by learning to speak
with precision you learn to think
with correctness; and firm and Wig
orous speech lies through the cult
walton of high and noble sympathies
l think, as far as my observation has
gene, that men will do better al
reaching precision by studying care.
| c,llv and NTH m oman ,,,;nJ opI q